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Report: Fiancé of Ithaca bartender fought through police to see love of his life for last time

amanda bush.PNG

Amanda Bush, 27, was engaged to be married to Adam Cortright and was carrying their second child when she died in a crash at Simeon's Restaurant on the Ithaca Commons.
(Photo provided to the Ithaca Voice)

Ithaca, N.Y. -- The fiancé of Amanda Bush, the Simeon's Restaurant bartender who died in an accident Friday, drove from 30 minutes away and broke through police barriers to see the love of his life one last time, the Ithaca Voice reports.

Adam Cortright drove from Moravia after he received a call about a crash at the restaurant, reports Jeff Stein, former Syracuse.com reporter and editor of the Ithaca Voice.

Cortright fought through a swarm of emergency responders to be with the woman he'd loved for six years, he told the Ithaca Voice.

A tractor-trailer sits in an Ithaca restaurant Friday after crashing. One person was killed and several injured. Courtesy Jeff Stein/Ithaca Voice

"I wasn't trying to leave, but I got to a point where I thought I was going to jail," Cortright told the Ithaca Voice in a phone interview. "We were engaged to be married. We were very, very much in love," he said.

The couple met at the Boatyard Grill on Taughannock Boulevard in Ithaca while she was waiting tables and he was a cook there.

They lived in Myrtle Beach, S.C., for a little over four years before returning to Upstate New York to raise their first child, Madison. Bush was just starting to show at the time of her death, Cortright said. They hadn't set a date for a wedding because she didn't want to be pregnant in their photos, he said.

Cortright told the Ithaca Voice that he hadn't gotten to the over 500 voicemails and messages left by friends and loved ones after the crash.

But he thanked them, the community and a police officer who helped him at the scene for all the support his family has gotten since the crash.

Bush's family has also designated the nonprofit The United Way of Tompkins County to collect contributions for the Amanda Bush Memorial Fund, which will donate 100 percent of what it collects to the family, according to the website.